O.C. auto show in Anaheim sets the stage for sales

Oct. 2, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Jeremy Marcus, with Cosmetic Car Care in Irvine, polishes SCCA racing Porsches at the Orange County International Auto Show in 2010. The show is the first major market auto show of the season. This year a crew of 16 of the company's detailers will be beautifying 115 vehicles. H. LORREN AU JR., THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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After carefully bucket washing and then drying a car's body, Cosmetic Car Care Inc. show manager Luis Castro waxes and buffs the finish of a 2013 Scion FR-S on Monday. His Irvine-based vehicle detailing company will be the busiest one at this week's Orange County International Auto Show. A crew of 16 detailers will be bringing on the shine to 115 vehicles. H. LORREN AU JR., THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Jeremy Marcus, vice president of new sales at Cosmetic Car Care Inc., in Irvine, says his company annually averages about 80 auto shows and 100 special events where they provide detailing services. H. LORREN AU JR., THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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On Monday, Luis Castro, show manager with Cosmetic Car Care Inc., buffs up a shine to the hood of a 2013 Scion FR-S. The car will likely be among those on display at the Orange County International Auto Show, opening Thursday. Cosmetic employs 25 staffers based around the country. H. LORREN AU JR., THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Luis Castro, show manager with Cosmetic Car Care Inc., cleans the rims, tires and wheel wells of a 2013 Scion FR-S that is likely on its way to the Orange County International Auto Show, opening Thursday. The Irvine-based car detailing company is the largest operation of its kind at the auto show. H. LORREN AU JR., THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Luis Castro, show manager with Cosmetic Car Care Inc., gets every edge of a 2013 Scion FR-S's windshield clean as his Irvine-based company readies for a full workload. Sixteen detailers will be cleaning 115 vehicles on display at the Orange County International Auto Show, opening Thursday. H. LORREN AU JR., THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Jeremy Marcus, with Cosmetic Car Care in Irvine, polishes SCCA racing Porsches at the Orange County International Auto Show in 2010. The show is the first major market auto show of the season. This year a crew of 16 of the company's detailers will be beautifying 115 vehicles. H. LORREN AU JR., THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

It was the night before the opening of the auto show and the German crew preparing a 2012 Audi R8 GT Spyder discovered the $200,000 sport car's side door rocker panel got damaged in transit. With the clock ticking down to show time, what to do?

Enter Cosmetic Car Care of Irvine. The auto detailing outfit removed the damaged 4-inch by 5-foot panel, found someone to repair it and re-installed it by daybreak.

"No one had any idea of what happened the night before when the show opened," said Jeremy Marcus, Cosmetic's vice president of new sales.

Visitors will do a lot of oohing and aahing at the cars when the 48th annual Orange County International Auto Show opens in Anaheim on Thursday, but few realize the army it takes to make it happen.

Many of those foot soldiers are part of Orange County's auto community, which includes local auto companies such as Fisker Automotive in Anaheim and Hyundai Motor America in Fountain Valley; auto design houses including Toyota's Calty Design Research Center in Newport Beach and Metalcrafters in Fountain Valley, and the detailers and logistics firms like Cosmetic Car Care.

And all of them have one goal: selling cars.

"The more people who go to the show, the more people will go to a dealership and may buy cars," Marcus said. "It helps everyone."

Orange County's event is unique among the 70 auto shows around the world each year. It's not the biggest. It's not the splashiest. But it is the first of the season and is prized by the auto industry because of the consumers who attend.

Put simply, they buy cars.

More cars were sold by Orange County dealers last year than in 24 individual states, said John Sackrison, executive director of the Orange County Automobile Dealers Association, which puts on the show with Motor Trend Auto Shows LLC.

"And 23 percent of the people in Orange County who are going to buy a car in the next 12 months are going to be at the auto show," he said, citing a Foresight Research study.

Last year, total auto dealer sales in Orange County rose to $7.6 billion from $6.5 billion in 2010. Sackrison projects $8.5 billion in sales this year.

But it's not just today's sales that make the Orange County auto show a big event for the industry.

The show offers a unique opportunity to gather intelligence on how consumers are reacting to the cars and their features, said Eric Noble of The Car Lab auto marketing research firm in Orange.

"The attendance is really high with real consumers," he said. "You can't walk through the Detroit show and see how consumers react."

For instance, a few years ago, the Honda Insight hybrid was getting all kinds of industry buzz.

"But at the Orange County show, you could tell it was going to be a big sales loser because nobody was looking at it," Noble said. "But you had to stand in line to get in and out of the Prius."

When Hyundai released its Sonata, Noble decided to eavesdrop on the people checking it out.

"I sat in the back of a Sonata and just acted like I was looking at the accoutrements for 10 or 15 minutes while regular people got in and out," he said. "It was very obvious the Sonata was going to be a big hit."

For visitors, the show is not only an opportunity to check out the cars but also to test drive them without the sales pressure they might feel at the dealership.

This year's show will have more than 100 vehicles for visitors to test drive and, in a new special offering, a select few who do a test drive will be eligible for a free ride at the show with a professional driver in a Ferrari or Lamborghini.

But before all that happens, the Cosmetic Car Care crew will be there, spending up to two hours preparing each of the 115 vehicles they will be responsible for during the show and assuring they will be in tiptop shape during the four days of the event.

Gregg Kuroda, Cosmetic's general manager, said he likes to tell people his job is baby-sitting cars.

"We want to make the car look as brand new as it was when it rolled off the line."

The Orange County International Auto Show will run Thursday through Sunday at the Anaheim Convention Center, 800 W. Katella Ave. See autoshowoc.com.

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